Blog for May 2023 Seminar : Does Knowledge Management need to change ?

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Steve Dale led our seminar which was an ‘open session’ aimed to encourage discussion and challenge. He examined these questions : What is KM ? Does KM get confused with IM. What is the difference ? Does the size of an organization determine the success or failure of a KM strategy ? In the 1990’s KM was recognised as a discipline. Is it still fit for purpose in the 21st century ? What needs to change ? Can AI help KM practitioners ? How ? What prior knowledge, competencies and skills make a good KMer ? What is your experience of KM – good or bad ?

Steve is the founder of Collabor8now which focuses on developing collaborative environments (e.g. Communities of Practice) and the integration of enabling technologies and processes, including KM, IM, Big Data and AI.
He is a certified knowledge manager with the Knowledge Management Institute (KMI) and the author of several published research papers on collaborative behaviours and information technology. Over a 30 year plus career he has led over 40 major change programmes using knowledge and information management techniques and motivational learning strategies.
He occasionally blogs at stephendale.com and collabor8now.com and tweets at @stephendale

What is KM ? How do you document, store, communicate and apply knowledge in an organization in order to improve the processes of that organization. In essence ‘ how do you get the right knowledge to the right person at the right time’. Academics refer to Explicit Knowledge and Implicit / Tacit Knowledge.
Explicit Knowledge is codified and stored and ready to be shared with others. Tutorial videos, databases, memos, books and blogs. Implicit (Tacit) Knowledge is the knowledge inside our heads. This is experience, intuition and natural talent gained over the years. The big consulting firms offered KM as a service from the mid 1990’s. KM Standard – ISO 30401 : 2018. ‘The standard sets requirements and provides guidelines for establishing, implementing, maintaining, reviewing, and improving an effective management system for knowledge management in organizations. All the requirements of this document are applicable to any organization, regardless of its type or size, or the products and services it provides’. There has been a lot of theorizing about the interaction between explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. Nonaka and Takeuchi modelled a ‘Knowledge Spiral’. Knowledge follows a cycle in which inplicit (tacit) knowledge is ‘extracted’ to become explicit knowledge and explicit knowledge is ‘re-internalised’ into implicit knowledge. The model is called SECI (Socialisation, Externalisation, Combination, Internalisation).

There has been a lot of debate and many diagrams.

Does any of this theorizing tell us what it means to be a good Knowledge Manager or how to apply KM to ‘improve value’ to an organization ?
If we compare manufacturing with offices – regarding ways of working – over the past 70 years then manufacturing has seen huge changes but office work, despite automation, has not developed as radically.

Steve identified four Knowledge Eras of increasing complexity. 1995-2022.
It began with Information Management in the mid-1990’s leveraging explicit knowledge with the key notion of collecting as exemplified by knowledge repositories, best practice, search, taxonomy and residing in artefacts and libraries. This led on to leveraging tacit knowledge in the form of connecting via experience management as exemplified by communities of practice, expert locators AAR’s (After Action Reviews). In turn, leveraging collective knowledge via collaboration led on to Sharepoint, Slack, Google docs, Crowd sourcing. This was / is networked knowledge. Now, by leveraging the creation of knowledge we have ‘sensemaking’ with agile, design thinking, complexity – a ‘new era’. This augmented knowledge is about creating which, in turn, requires a high level of analytical skill. Moreover, the process itself is melded from ‘diverse and unexpected data sources’. Innovation is paramount and it may be disruptive.
Mass connectivity, AI machine learning and data ubiquity are huge stimuli.

Of course there are real concerns in this era. However, it was time to move on to the Table Discussions.

An essential part of a NetIKX seminar are the ‘round table’ discussions by participants after the speaker has finished his talk.

This blog will now focus on the roundtable discussions on three tables and it will bring out the ideas, themes and suggestions put forward by participants and committed to paper. It will compare these with what came out of research on Chat GPT by our Speaker Steve Dale who issued one page of his results to each table as appropriate.

N.B. On each table one collator entered their chosen words or phrases using a black marker pen on a large white sheet of paper (flipchart). All words and / or phrases marked down have been listed.

N.B.B. Chat GPT sheets have been summarised below, in essence only lead headings from each paragraph have been listed. However, the concluding paragraphs are replicated in full.

Table 1 : Theme – Enumerate the processes / technologies / skills that could or should be part of KM.

The participants put foward the following :-

Learning from experience ; business analysis ; action plan ; good communication skills ; recognising human element ; listening ;
change management ; governance model ; technology ; agility ; metrics ;
organisation culture ; cost benefit ; curation ; compliance ; horizon scanning ;
story telling ; risk management ; ethical use of AI.

Chat GPT : Can AI help KM practitioners ?
Knowledge discovery ; natural language processing ; chatbots and virtual assistants ; personalization ; predictive analytics.

Overall, AI can help KM practitioners streamline their processes, improve the quality of KM practices, and ultimately drive better business outcomes.

Table 2 : What prior knowledge, competencies and skills make a good Knowledge Manager ?

The participants put forward the following :-

Communicating, recording an idea so that it is simple to understand and the human element – influence, engage, foster a culture of collaboration.
Understanding our changing world ; communities of practice ; managing versus controlling ; eliminating silos ; cross-discipline department ; people sharing what their roles are ; technologies – exponential level of changes ; understanding the fall out and the cost – harder to manage ; missing body language.

Chat GPT : Knowledge of the organization ; knowledge of KM concepts and practices ; communication and interpersonal skills ; project management skills ; analytical and problem solving skills ; continuous learning.

In summary, a good Knowledge Manager should have a mix of technical, analytical, communication, and interpersonal skills, combined with a deep understanding of the organization and KM techniques.

Table 3 : Does the size of an organisation determine the success or failure of a KM strategy ?

The participants put forward the following :-

KM can work or not in any sized organisation ; success is more dependent on culture, need, and governance ; so many extenauting factors – internal politics, embarassment, redundancies, sufficient resourcing, management integrity, position with an organisation.

Chat GPT : The size of an organization does not necessarily determine the success or failure of a KM strategy. Success depends on .. culture, leadership, resources, and commitment to KM strategy.

Small organizations can be more agile and adaptable, fewer bureaucratic hurdles to overcome.

Large organizations have more resources and expertise, they may have more complex KM challenges.

Ultimately, the success or failure of a KM strategydepends on how well it is aligned with the organization’s goals, culture and processes, and how effectively it is implemented and sustained over time. A well-designed and executed KM strategy can benefit organizations of any size, while a poorly designed or implemented strategy can fail regardless of size.

The conclusion ? While not trying to compare ‘man’ with ‘machine’ directly there is good evidence that Chat GPT is very impressive and that AI has arrived with a ‘big bang’ and of course, here we are talking about three ‘teams’ of men and women working together on three separate tables and up against one machine.

N.B.B. ‘Deus ex machina’. Modern Latin quote (originally in Greek). It means ‘god from the machinery’. In Greek theatre , actors representing gods were suspended above the stage, the denouement of the play being brought about by their intervention.

Am I being unfair to the human factor ?

RR 20/06/2023

 

 

 

May 2023 Seminar : Does Knowledge Management need to change ?

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Summary

This ‘simple question’ was put to our audience in NetIKX’s first ‘live meeting’ in over 3 years. Our speaker looked back over 40 Information Management (IM) / Knowledge Management (KM) projects that he has managed in a 35 years plus career. He questioned whether KM processes and disciplines have helped or hindered the desired outcomes. It was an open session which encouraged discussion from delegates.

Speaker

Stephen Dale of Collaborate Now – http://collabor8now.com

Time & Venue

Thursday May 25th 2023 at the British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS at 2:00 pm.

Slides

Are available to NetIKX members in the members hub.

Tweets

#netikx118

Blog

Is being written.

Study Suggestions

To follow

Blog for September 2022 Seminar : Conversational Leadership Café : Is this our Gutenberg moment !

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This seminar was presented by David Gurteen who has been running Knowledge Cafés for 20 years. He has a growing interest in the power of conversation. He has written a blook on conversational leadership. He has researched, reflected upon and written about ‘conversations’. Conversation is a potentially powerful response to the problems that we face in the world.
Two questions : What are the roots of our problems ? What role does the individual and conversation play in responding to our problems ?
https://conversational-leadership.net

Now, when did Knowledge Management start ? Did it start in the 1990’s ?
No. it did not. It started 60,000 years ago with a ‘cognitive revolution’ which incorporated a great leap forward and a cultural big bang. Before the cognitive revolution humans evolved slowly. After the cognitive revolution anatomical evolution ceased and and we started to evolve culturally and linguistically. In the cognitive revolution we started to learn from each other through teaching, imitation, and other forms of social transmission. As a result we could pass knowledge on from generation to generation. Thus we see the birth of Knowledge Management (KM). Summing it up :-
60,000 years Before the Christian Era (BCE) – Cognitive Revolution.
10,000 years BCE – Neolithic Revolution.
9,500 years BCE – First Cities.
4,000 years BCE – First Empire
3,500 years BCE – Invention of Writing
700 years BCE – First Library
470 years BCE – Socrates
476 years AD – Dark Ages
1,300 years AD – Renaissance
The Gutenberg printing press was invented in Germany in 1440.

History of Knowledge
1440 Printing Press
1500’s Protestant Revolution
1543 Copernican Revolution
1600 Scientific Revolution
1618 Thirty Years War
1650 Enlightenment
1760 First Industrial Revolution
1870 Second Industrial Revolution
1945 Information Revolution
2011 Industry 4.0

Going to the Information Revolution :-

1945 Early computers
1969 Internet
1981 IBM pc
1989 World Wide Web
2000 Social Media
2007 Smartphones
2011 Zoom

Looking at the impact of the web and social media as a paradigm – 1,2,3.

1) Read / write access to the world’s knowledge (the web/social media).
2) Ability to converse with anyone, anywhere in the world (social media/zoom).
3) Soon different languages will no longer be a barrier (language translation in real time).

So we have four Mega knowledge revolutions. Language led to the Cognitive Revolution. The invention of writing led to the First IT revolution. The Printing Press led to the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment.
Is social media (Zoom) leading to yet another Knowledge Revolution ?

A better world

Problems – Capacity to respond
Hyperlinked Complex VUCA world – High degree of literacy / education
Disruptive technology – High degree of awareness / willingness
Global warming / pollution – Cognitive Surplus
Existential crisis – Conversation revolution

Is this our Gutenberg moment ?

The printing press led to the Protestant revolution which undermined the authority of the Catholic church which in turn led to the 30 years war.
But it also led to the Scientific Revolution and the enlightenment.

Social media is leading to a polarization of society and the undermining of the
authority of experts and many of our governmental institutions.
But maybe it is leading to a second Scientific revolution and enlightenment ?

Will social media have as great an impact on the world as the printing press ?

Gutenberg revolutionized the world. Is this our Gutenberg moment ?

Where each and everyone of us can share our knowledge and can converse and collaborate globally ?

We then split into two groups and had ‘conversation’ within our group .
Then the two groups assembled all together and we discussed our ideas in a conversational manner rather than the standard ‘feedback’ mode of behaviour.
These are the salient points made during that conversation which involved every participant. N.B. The points here summarise in a sentence or two what the individual participant said.

• Is it really a revolution if it affects only a part of the population ?
• Many people are excluded from this revolution by powerful people who exploit technology for their own ends.
• What are we not allowed to say on social media ? What are we being dislocated from ? How about ‘mindfulness’. Any technology that encourages you to go out into the world is good.
• It is a complex picture – Utopia or Dystopia.
• More like dystopia when a few financiers can speculate at the expense of everyone else.
• Religion aims at morality and better standards of behaviour. Can social media help us to become moral beings. Is ‘computing’ replacing monolithic religions.
• Small minorities can get a ‘very loud voice’ on social media.
• It is often about gender.
• Marshall McLuhan predicted the world wide web almost thirty years before it was invented. ‘The global village’. ‘The medium is the message’.
• Huge social changes are not done by majorities. Well organized minorities are the most influential.
• Most people in the world don’t live in democracies. What do people who live in non-democratic countries make of their world and what do they make of our world ?
• A sort of tribalism seems to have come back and it is evident in social media.
• ‘Hate speech’ comes from a few people piling into an issue. It is not a real discussion. If your comment gets more ‘likes’ than the original comment then you have won your argument. You have ‘ratioed’ the other person.
• It is difficult to have a conversation in ‘real time’. Real conversation is ‘nuanced’ – digital conversation is not.
• The whole issue of inclusion and accessibility being tackled by ‘a technology’ is difficult.
• There has been a rise in the use of voice messaging which has led to a rise in the use of texting to answer it. Some people are uncomfortable with talking so they rely on ‘CHAT’. This is where moderators are needed.
• Will Zoom be the driving force for this revolution ?
• Most teenagers in the USA cannot read cursive text, so they cannot read letters.
• What sort of future is there going to be for ‘the book’ ? Barrack Obama’s Presidential Library is going to be digital.
• Actually, digital books have ‘plateaued’ at 15% of the market. Books are still being published.
• One participant used a kindle for a few months and then went back to books.
• It is about ‘choice’. Some people cannot access books. Digital books can be used by poorly sighted people. Books will not go away.
• One participant preferred reading digital books on train journeys or when travelling away from home. She has joined Saffron Walden Library. She has read ‘Game of Thrones’ in book form and preferred it to the TV series.
• There is still the issue of book fines with library books. Two participants feel the pressure of reading a book quickly enough to avoid a fine on returning it to the library.
• One participant commended cafes which offer little magazines, poetry to their customers. Perhaps little art exhibitions. People are being reached in these environments.
• One participant has so many books (some of which he has not yet read) that he does not go to the library.
• ‘More of the same’ was one conclusion. We are experiencing ‘information overload’ once again. It is better to read a good novel than to consume ‘threads of information’.
• We all have different forms of ‘information consumption’. One participant subscribes to blogs and other things in magazines. He employs a ‘speed reader’ to flag what he is interested in.
• One participant uses podcasts. The best podcasts are ‘conversations’. This is a different experience from slagging people off on Twitter.
• ‘Little Discourse Project’ was mentioned. One participant attempted to define the spectrum of conversations online. This covered audio and visual. For example :- interviews, debates, podcasts. Polite / aggressive debates etc.
• Is this amazing technological revolution going to improve our world ? There is a desire within us to be taken away from ‘words’. We communicate on so many levels. We communicate via Art, Music. Also, by activities such as digging the garden, riding the bike, going to the Park.
• Everyone sees the home / office duality of working as a good thing. But are we getting out of the house enough ? Are we socialising enough ? Is this a bad thing for our mental health ?
• Yes, this is a ‘Gutenberg Moment’. However, although it may well be a good revolution in the long term so far as the short term is concerned there will be more ‘social turbulence’ and a regression to a form of tribalism or clique mentalities.
• What about the environment against which this revolution is taking place. How much real social interaction takes place in Britain’s towns and cities ? In places like Antwerp and the Netherlands they have a ‘mixed culture’ expressed partly in the built environment which works well. It fosters social interaction. We do not have that sort of built environment here.
• ‘Advertising’ was seen as part of the problem. Advertising helps perpetuate myths such as ‘the earth is not burning’; ‘biodiversity has not collapsed’.
• One participant pointed out that the Chinese government has managed to control the web and social media in China. Many outsiders thought that this was an impossible goal. So totalitarianism can operate within social media.
• We are talking about a tool – social media – it can either be a good tool or a bad tool.
• One participant talked about the very different story he heard from a Chinese guide about the Tienanmen Square protests.
• One participant talked about his parents information on the world way back in the 1950’s. No TV, no internet, no car. BBC Home Service (now Radio 4) and the ‘Daily Mirror’. Any book came from the library. TV came later. Advertising back then was ‘propaganda’. How much ‘power and control’ advertising executives had in those days. However, the internet has undermined this as everything these days is much more fragmented.
• So it is ‘Gutenberg moments’ not a ‘Gutenberg moment’. It consists of spontaneity, different revolutions, different scales and times.
• Scientifically, ‘moment’ has a meaning in physics. It means – mass (strength) x velocity and you apply it across the piece. How important is it ? and how is it changing ? An interesting analogy.

Finally, David Gurteen concluded that it had been an enjoyable session.

He also said that the group had understood how complex it is, how fragmented and difficult it all is and … where are we heading ?

Looking back on the session we were all ‘bubbling over with ideas’.

Resources :-

Grooming, gossip and the evolution of language. Robin Dunbar. Harvard University Press. 2020.
The Printing Press as an agent of change. Elizabeth L. Eisenstein. Cambridge University Press. 1980.
Religion and the rise of Capitalism. R.H.Tawney. 1926 re-published by Verso World History Series. 2015.
The Real England. Paul Kingsworth. Granta Books. 2009.

 

RR 12/10/2022

 

Blog for May 2022 Seminar: MS Teams – The Case for Information Architecture and Governance

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This seminar was given by Alex Church a Senior Consultant with Metataxis. Metataxis has clients in central and local government; charities and non-profit organisations; the private sector; higher education and much more. Metataxis is in the business of managing information.

What is Teams ?  Teams is all about communication (chat, audio/video conferencing, telephony) and collaboration (content sharing, storage, task mangement etc ).  Teams is only one part of Office 365 – which is a whole set of cloud business applications. Now there is both an ‘upside’ and a ‘downside’. A good thing about Teams is the fact that it can be set up and used straightaway for collaborative working. This fact can also be a bad thing because if you simply turn on Teams and then let everyone ‘get on with it’ – it can very quickly become messy and chaotic. Teams requires an information management strategy. SharePoint underpins Teams. Teams has to have both governance and information architecture.

You cannot permit ‘self creation’ in Teams. An approval and provisioning process is necessary. You can build your own (manual) or use 3rd party apps. Begin with a simplified Teams architecture :- chat can be stored in a personal mailbox and in One Drive up in the cloud. Team can create an M365 Group with a Group mailbox and files can be stored in SharePoint. Every Team has a SharePoint site behind it. Therefore a document library is created by default and a folder is created for each Channel. So Teams Information Architecture imposes a Teams/Channel = Library/Folder Information Architecture. You get a ‘General’ channel/folder which cannot be removed. Do note that Private Channels are accessible only to a sub-set of Team members. Teams need to be ‘named’ so you will need a Teams naming convention – you will need to stop two Teams having the same name. A ‘Group Naming Policy’ can be enforced via Azure AD. Are the teams going to be Public or Private ? Public teams are visible to everyone and can be joined without the team owner’s approval. Private teams can only be joined if the team owner adds you. Public or Private is also relevant regarding SharePoint permissions. Particularly check permissions of a Public Team SharePoint site to prevent unauthorised editing and/or deleting of files.

An important part of governance is managing Teams Lifecycle:-

Expiration Policy –  This applies to the Group and requires Azure AD Premium. Deletes all Teams content and apps. It can be a set time period or be based on last activity. Team owners have the option to ‘Renew’.

Retention Policy – This applies to messages/chat; files. Set at Team/Site level by admins. It can retain content for a certain period or it can delete content after a certain period.

Retention Labels – This applies to files. Admins can set defaults/ auto application. It is applied at a document level. It can retain content for a certain period or it can delete content after a certain period.

Chat and Channel Messages – You can only use Retention Policies not Retention Labels. What is the value of  Chat and Channel Messages ? There has to be a balance between the desire to delete them with the need to keep them for reference or evidence.

Archiving – This can be done by a Team Admin or Owner.

To sum up : Teams is a great tool and is the direction of travel for Microsoft.

 

Rob Rosset 24/06/22.

 

May 2022 Seminar: MS Teams – The Case for Information Architecture and Governance

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Summary

This meeting was about MS Teams and, in essence, MS Teams are about communication (chat, audio/video conferencing, telephony) and collaboration (content sharing, storage, task management etc.). Teams is just one part of Office 365 which is a whole set of cloud business applications. However, before deploying Teams you will need an Information Management Strategy, you will need to create a Team and have a proper Teams architecture. Also, every Team has a Share Point Site behind it.

Speaker

The speaker was Alex Church of the Metataxis Consultancy.

Time and Venue

Thursday May 26th, 2022 at 2:30 pm via the Zoom online platform.

Slides

Will be made available to members.

Tweets

#netikx115

Blog

NetIKX blog for this event.

Study Suggestions

No study suggestions

Blog Report for January 2022 Seminar : Introduction to Radical Knowledge Management

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Summary

The speaker (Stephanie Barnes) started from the premise that in this global and digital age we must focus on people, processes and technology. We are all leaders and we must use the knowledge and tools available to us in creative and innovative ways. Therefore we must employ critical thinking, resilience and reflection in a sustainable way to continually adapt to the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) in our environment. We are forever dealing with uncertainty and having to learn continuously. We must adopt ‘trial and error’ in our practices. These new practices are drawn from art, artistic practice, artistic attitude, artistic process and, above all, artistic creativity. We will need the space to be creative and analytical.

The new work requires us to be sustainable. The new work requires the whole person to be involved in their work, not just part. It requires on-going learning and engagement; and it requires creativity and self-fulfilment. Many of these things are learned through adopting a creative and artistic approach. Stephanie spoke critically about education. She believes that creativity is ‘educated’ out of us and we must re-discover it. We broke up into small groups and drew images suggested by Stephanie and then showed them to each other via zoom to share our understanding of her instructions to us.

However, the most important ‘take-away’ from this seminar was quite simple – ‘be creative’.

Rob Rosset 05/05/2022

 

January 2022 Seminar: Introduction to Radical Knowledge Management

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Summary :

With the ongoing development of technology and its impact on every workplace in industry and commerce we must seek to radicalise the effectiveness of Knowledge Management by learning lessons from the creative essence of art and artists. In this way we can increase productivity and liberate insightful improvements to industrial and commercial processes by encouraging innovation.

Speaker :

Stephanie Barnes is an Independent Consultant based in Berlin, Germany.

Time and Venue :

A Zoom lecture held on Thursday January 27th 2022.

Slides :

Slides will be made available to members.

Tweets :

#netikx114

Blog :

A blog is available to members

Study Suggestions :

The following suggestions are made :

 

 

March 2021 Seminar: Working during the Covid-19 pandemic: sharing insights and experiences

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Summary This meeting consisted of  eight speakers talking for ten minutes each about different aspects of their experience of working during this time, followed by the usual syndicate sessions, where experiences were  shared in more detail, so that we can manage better as we move forward into a still uncertain future. Speakers The eight speakers […]

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Blog for January 2021 Seminar: Managing Knowledge in Project Environments

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How can we manage knowledge more effectively in project environments? This was the question posed in the most recent NetIKX seminar, led by Judy Payne, an independent consultant and co-author of Managing Knowledge in Project Environments .

How do project managers define KM?

Judy began by comparing the 2012 and 2019 versions of the APM Body of Knowledge (BoK) definitions of knowledge management (KM). The 2012 entry reads ‘Knowledge management is the systematic management of information and learning. It turns personal information and experience into collective knowledge that can be widely shared throughout an organisation and a profession.’ Many participants felt that this confused the concepts of information management and knowledge management and failed to cover important aspects of KM such as managing tacit knowledge. The 2019 definition, however, is considerably broader, describing KM as ‘the holistic, cross-functional discipline and set of practices concerned with the way organisations create and use knowledge to improve outcomes.’ We agreed that this was an improvement, but the issue of defining KM to those outside the discipline remains. Judy pointed out that knowledge managers and project managers often have different mindsets, and it can be difficult to integrate KM into the project management body of knowledge.

The KM context within project management can be complex, as much of the KM which occurs within project management is not explicitly recognised as such – and conversely, much of what is labelled KM is often information management. Within a project environment, KM is often treated as a series of separate activities rather than as a tool to help produce better outcomes. There is a widespread belief that KM is simply a matter of capturing ‘lessons learned’ at the end of a project, whereas capturing knowledge is only one aspect of KM. In fact, KM practices can and should be integrated into the way a project is managed and the working environment.

Waterfall or agile? What does this mean for KM?

Judy then went on to compare the linear and iterative approaches to project management: within a linear (‘waterfall’) environment, knowledge is static, knowledge creation and application are separate and knowledge boundaries develop between stages, whereas in an iterative (‘agile’) project, knowledge is dynamic and flows well throughout the project and knowledge creation and application can be integrated. However, KM can pose a particular challenge in an agile environment due to the lack of documentation. One participant noted that although knowledge transfers well from one sprint to another, it is lost at the end of the project. The ‘correct’ approach is often dependent on the organisational culture, with some more traditional organisations being uncomfortable with the pace of the agile approach.

Sharing our experiences

For the breakout sessions, we were presented with three questions: what are your stories (good or bad) about KM in project work?; what are other examples of ‘hidden’ KM in project work? and how might KM thinking help you in future project work? Feedback from the sessions uncovered a number of common themes, including the fact that sometimes projects are ‘hidden’ in KM rather than the other way round – many of us had experience of working on something that could have been approached as a project but was not. Another theme was the way in which project managers focus on a linear progression with a clear outcome that can be measured in terms of material impact, whereas the benefits of KM cannot always be demonstrated so neatly: it was suggested that maybe we need to focus on benefits rather than objectives and on outcomes rather than outputs. Many thanks to Judy and to all who attended and contributed to this informative and highly interactive seminar.

By Carlin Parry. January 2021

May 2020 Seminar: How do we thrive in a hyper-connected, complex world?

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Summary

This meeting was a regular Knowledge Café that David Gurteen held especially for NetIKX members.  We heard David set out the reasons he felt the world had changed beyond all recognition since the second world war.  He listed the familiar story of the internet, transport advances, global finances and social media but also more unexpected aspects that give our world a new complexity. Then he invited us into break-out groups to share our own ideas on this fascinating topic.  After a break, David focused our attention on his favoured area of expertise; the need for new leadership styles and the power of conversation. He was very clear that people did not need a title of leader to develop the power of leadership. We joined second break-outs to take our networking further.  Then we shared ideas in a stimulating plenary. The meeting showed the value of the Knowledge Café approach, but also was a masterclass in using Zoom as the communication media.  NetIKX will take the ideas and the methods forward for the future.

Speakers

David Gurteen is a writer, speaker, and conversational facilitator. The focus of his work is Conversational Leadership – a style of working where we appreciate the power of conversation and take a conversational approach to the way that we connect, relate, learn and work with each other. He is the creator of the Knowledge Café – a conversational process to bring a group of people together to learn from each other, build relationships and make a better sense of a rapidly changing, complex, less predictable world. He has facilitated hundreds of Knowledge Cafés and workshops in over 30 countries around the world over the past 20 years. He is also the founder of the Gurteen Knowledge Community – a global network of over 20,000 people in 160 countries. Currently, he is writing an online book on Conversational Leadership. You can join a Knowledge Café if you consult his website.

Time and Venue

2pm on 20th May 2020, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Pre Event Information

The seminar was announced via the NetIKX website and explained that the seminar would be presented using the Zoom platform.

Slides

Not available.

Tweets

There were no Tweets from this meeting as we got used to our new ‘Zoom’ format.

Blog

See our blog report: Gurteen knowledge cafe

Study Suggestions

Visit David’s website: Gurteen Knowledge at www.gurteen.com

This site includes KM book reviews, news and useful quotations.

You can sign up for David’s regular newsletter from this site.